~ Random musings on all things cultural/Cultural

Sly Wit 2013

As always, I welcome the New Year with open arms and lots of plans and projects—although perhaps fewer than last year, when I proposed much and completed little.

Here’s what you can expect to see at Sly Wit in 2013.

Books:
I will not be undertaking my usual book-a-month challenge this year, which I’m sure everyone in the book salon will be pleased to hear. My original should-read challenge back in 2010 accomplished its goal, which was to get me back into reading, and I feel that recent selections have been difficult to get through because they felt like chores instead of challenges. That said, I still hope to complete War and Peace sometime this year—third time’s a charm!

Having recently had to analyze my bookshelves for Simon at Savidge Reads, I’ve decided I really need to clean up my bedside TBR pile, which still contains many of the books I took from the free bookshelves at the job I left over 18 months ago (!). So, as a more general challenge to myself, I am accepting the TBR Double Dog Dare and pledging to read only books in my TBR pile until April Fools Day. Of course, exceptions will be made for book salon books.

Speaking of my local book salon, I have decided to take the concept online and have created a group at Goodreads specifically for the salon. You can learn more about how the salon works here. Click here or in the sidebar to sign up for the Goodreads group.

Performing Arts:
The spring will bring numerous ballets at the San Francisco Ballet, including a repeat of last year’s delectable Onegin, and a new production of Prokofiev’s Cinderella.

Also on the agenda are two Lamplighter productions of Gilbert & Sullivan—The Sorcerer and Princess Ida—and a few outings to the San Francisco Symphony, including one to hear Itzhak Perlman on violin.

Finally, my San Francisco Opera subscription continues with Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte in the summer. La Maratonista and I plan to renew our subscription for the fall and take in Mefistofele, Falstaff, and Il barbiere di Siviglia among others.

Television and Film:
I’m not sure what I’ll be blogging when it comes to reality TV since I was pretty meh on both The X Factor and The Voice as their seasons winded down last month. Plus, giving up cable means that my viewing of So You Think You Can Dance might not be consistent from week to week. We’ll see what strikes my fancy.

On the other hand, I do plan more movie watching. First off, there’s my annual Oscar blitz coming up in January and February. I will be assisted in this endeavor by the exceedingly large gift certificate I received for Christmas. The gift card is for Landmark Theatres, which is the chain that shows most of the independent and foreign films in San Francisco as well as the two programs of Oscar shorts each year.

Closer to home, I’m hoping to continue the Film 101 series looking at various genres and directors over the year. This will probably begin in earnest once the Oscars are over. Originally I had planned to explore only genres (film noir, westerns, horror, etc.) but I so loved reviewing the entirety of Alfred Hitchcock’s work that I like the idea of picking specific (less prolific) directors to focus on. Suggestions welcome.

About Me

Half American, half French, and all-around opinionated.

“Maybe it’s the French in my blood. You know, sometimes I feel as if I’m sparkling all over and I want to go out and do something absolutely crazy and marvelous and then the American part of me speaks up and spoils everything.”--Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest